Scientific provision of an effective development of soybean breeding and seed production in the Russian Far East

In the Russian Far East, a highly profitable crop is soybean, which predominates in all farms’ crop rotation in the region. An increase in this crop production occurs here both by increasing the sown area and increasing its yield. Therefore, in scientific institutions, great attention is paid to breeding varieties that can produce high yields in conditions with limited thermal resources with adaptation to the extreme soil and climatic conditions of the region’s soybean growing zones. In 2020, 45 varieties developed by scientific institutions of the Far Eastern Federal District were introduced to the State Register of the Russian Federation and approved for use in production in code 12 region (Far Eastern), with the largest number of the entries coming from the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Soybeans. The share of cultivated areas in the Russian Far East occupied by domestic varieties was 63.7 %, the largest share of sown varieties – 48.9 % – belongs to the Federal Research Center All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Soybean. The most popular were the varieties of the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Soybean, such as Alena, Kitrossa, Lydiya, Evgeniya, MK 100, Primorsky varieties (Musson, Primorskaya 4, Primorskaya 86, Primorskaya 96, Sphera) are in demand mainly in Primorsky Krai, and Khabarovsk varieties (Batya, Marinata) have an advantage in Khabarovsky Krai and the Jewish Autonomous Region. All varieties are not genetically modified and are created mainly by classical breeding methods. Breeders of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution, “Federal Research Center of Agrobiotechnology of the Far East named after A.K. Chaika” and biotechnologists carry out the selection of pairs for crossing using biotechnological methods to assess their polymorphism, instead of long-term selection for phenotypic features in the field. Evaluation of domestic and foreign varieties for disease resistance revealed a high degree of damage to foreign varieties by dangerous viral and fungal diseases. Together with Japanese scientists from the University of Niigata, the astragalus mosaic virus was detected on Canadian and Chinese varieties in Primorsky Krai and the Amur Region using DNA analysis. The carrier of this disease is soybean aphid (Aphis glycines).